Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I apologise for leaving the meeting. I had to ask a question to the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade; it did not indicate a lack of interest in this subject.

I read the presentations and saw the briefs and found it all very interesting. I am not satisfied with the response from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine to Deputy Stanley's question. I am surprised at it. I would like to get more detail. As I understand it, most of our political capital in Europe in the past five years was put into getting a good deal in these negotiations. Did we maintain complete neutrality as to whether peatland would be included in any land-use measure or did it just come at the Commission's own volition? How did we negotiate on that issue? I am surprised at the response that the amount of carbon we save on peatlands is uncertain. There are various academic reports, including a very recent one from Rogier Schulte, formerly of Teagasc and others, showing in some detail that as he advocates it is possible for soil organic carbon or land-use management of wetlands to be a mechanism for carbon emissions reduction.

An earlier paper from O'Reilly and others set out 5.2 million tonnes per annum loss in CO2 equivalent from unmanaged degraded peat wetlands. I am just perplexed as to why we have accepted this idea. Has it been finalised and are we ruling out the possibility of using that massive carbon sink, which would surely come at a much lower cost than any of the other afforestation or equivalent options that could be considered? I am interested to hear in more detail what was our negotiating position on the issue. Is it closed and if not, can we not consider the option?

I will not get through all the questions. In one of the papers, the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, indicates we are not on target to meet our 2020 targets. I understand we are only one of two countries - it is us and Luxembourg - that will not meet the targets. I presume that is why we were given such flexibility on the credit side. It cannot be a coincidence that Ireland and Luxembourg are the countries with the big credit mechanism, although as Dr. O'Neill indicated, it will cost us. The EPA figures show us missing the target with two possible missed trajectories. The first is "with measures" and the second is with "additional" measures. I presume we are not taking the option with "additional" measures. It is only in a year or two. Is that a correct assumption? Are we doing the additional measures or are we following the blue line demonstrated in the paper?

If we are thinking for the long term about this and moving to 2050, will we get the likely grace of a 9% lowering of our ambition because we argued that we have a particular difficulty making the transition or there is a particular cost problem? Will that still be there in 2050 or is it expected that it will be massaged out over the course of subsequent decades? Do the EPA or the others think that as we are signing the Paris Agreement, with an ambition to stay below an increase of 1.5° C, the European 2030 targets set us on that trajectory? Is it likely, if science is to be our champion in terms of policy approach, that there will be an increase in the likely targets for 2030 at some stage as we continue the ratcheting up of the Paris Agreement for 2020 and beyond? If Europe is serious about this, do we expect that there will be increased ambition within the European process?